English church monuments in the middle ages

in monuments extending to sculpted effigies, incised slabs, and the all too easilyoverlooked cross slab grave covers.. The study of medieval monuments has a long history.. Gough’s Sepulch

M I D D L E AG E S

English Church Monuments

in the Middle Ages

History and Representation

N I G E L S AU L

1

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Church monuments have long been the subject of antiquarian study From as far

back as the 1790s, when Richard Gough published his Sepulchral Monuments, they

have attracted the attention of those seeking to reconstruct England’s past fromstudy of her antiquities Since the beginning of the twentieth century, they havealso received the attention of historians of art and sculpture Prior and Gardner’sgreat monograph, published in 1912, put monuments at the very heart of researchinto the medieval plastic arts More recently, the study of monuments has beenundertaken by archaeologists and students of material culture The specialistdiscourse of archaeology has crept into more than a few recent discussions ofthe subject This monograph approaches monuments from a different perspectiveagain, that of the political, social, and religious historian The book focuses, inparticular, on the commemorated—on their ambitions and aspirations, on theways in which they were represented on monuments, and on the uses which theymade of their monuments While it by no means excludes issues of design andproduction—both are considered in some detail—such matters are approachedmainly from the perspective of the social meaning of monuments The principalaim of the book is to integrate the study of church monuments into the mainstreamstudy of the medieval past

In the course of writing these pages I have incurred a considerable number

of debts The first is to all the incumbents, churchwardens, and keyholders whohave arranged access to locked churches for me, sometimes at short notice I amgrateful to them all for giving me such assistance I am even more grateful to thoseincumbents who have managed to keep their churches open and accessible It isunderstandable that today a great many churches should be kept locked Thefts ofchurch treasures have become a serious problem for the Church of England, andbrasses often figure among the objects stolen and disposed of abroad None theless, the locking of churches, a practice becoming increasingly common, is still to

be regretted Not only is it at odds with the Church’s mission of evangelization;

it is discouraging to all those who take pleasure in visiting these buildings both

to savour their atmosphere—to find God—and to study their architecture andcontents To the diminishing number of incumbents who make a commitment

to keeping their churches open, I pay generous tribute All with an interest incherishing this country’s heritage stand in their debt

I would also like to record my appreciation to those who have assisted me onaspects of the subject where my own expertise is sadly limited Like many who grew

up in the 1960s, I became interested in monuments through visiting churches to

do brass rubbings Indeed, it was partly through my early interest in brasses that

I developed in interest in medieval history more generally Later, when I beganworking professionally on the history of medieval England, I found my interest

in monuments extending to sculpted effigies, incised slabs, and the all too easilyoverlooked cross slab grave covers Even today, however, I am conscious that Iknow much less about these other kinds of monuments—and least of all aboutgrave covers—than I do about brasses I am also conscious that I know muchless about the production of monuments than I do about the lives of those whomthey commemorate Accordingly, I would like to record my thanks to all whohave allowed me to draw on their own areas of specialist knowledge In particular,

I would like to thank Sally Badham, Jon Bayliss, Philip Lankester, and SophieOosterwijk I would also like to thank Paul Cockerham for his good-humouredadvice on a whole range of matters to do with monuments, most notably Cornishmonuments and patterns of commemoration on the Continent

A number of friends and scholars have kindly read parts of the book for me.Jerome Bertram, Anthony Musson, Brian Kemp, Philip Lankester, and John Blairhave read drafts of chapters which relate to their own areas of expertise I amgrateful to them all for undertaking this labour on my behalf I owe an especialdebt of gratitude to Sally Badham for reading a draft of the entire book and forcommenting on it in detail Whatever merits the book may have owes much to therange and perceptiveness of her criticism

Most of the reading for, and some of the writing of, this book has been done inthe Library of the Society of Antiquaries of London Without the resources of thismagnificent collection I would hardly have been able to delve as deeply as I haveinto the extensive antiquarian literature in the field The Society’s library is notonly by far the largest and most wide-ranging collection of its kind; it also offersthe convenience of having the material available on the open shelves, making it auniquely attractive place to work I am very grateful to Bernard Nurse, the recentlyretired Librarian, and his staff for the assistance they have given on my many visits

In conclusion, may I thank Royal Holloway, University of London, for porting the cost of research visits and for the award of a year’s sabbatical leave in2006–2007

sup-The dedication is to those who have been patient with my enthusiasm formonuments, accompanying me on visits to churches and regularly assisting withthe downloading of digital photographs

Nigel Saul

Royal Holloway, University of London

April 2008

Sources for Illustrations xiv

Appendix: A list of Sculpted Effigial Monuments of Civilians in England

List of Illustrations

1 Nunburnholme (Yorks.): cross shaft, probably ninth century 17

2 Whitchurch (Hants): monument of Frithburga, late ninth century 18

3 Stratfield Mortimer (Berks.): monument of Æthelweard son of Cypping,

4 Hereford Cathedral: cross slab grave cover, later thirteenth century 27

5 Bathampton (Som.): figure of an abbot, mid-twelfth century 30

6 Salisbury Cathedral: Bishop Jocelyn de Bohun, c 1180–90 31

7 St John’s Southover, Lewes (transferred from Lewes Priory): coffin slab of

Gundrada, wife of William de Warenne, c 1180 34

8 Trumpington (Cambs.): cross slab grave covers, thirteenth or fourteenth

9 Kingerby (Lincs.): a member of the Disney family, c 1340–50 46

10 Lincoln Cathedral: floor of the south choir aisle 54

11 Lowick (Northants): Ralph Green and his wife, c.1419 69

12 Barking (Essex): Martin, vicar of Barking (d 1328) 74

13 Merton College, Oxford: Richard de Hakebourne (d 1322) 77

14 Warbleton (Sussex): William Prestwick (d 1436) Rubbing of brass 79

15 Childrey (Berks.): William Finderne (d 1445) and his wife 89

16 Wollaton (Notts.): Richard Willoughby and his wife, c.1466 92

17 Morley (Derby.): Sir Thomas Stathum (d 1470) and his two wives

18 Westminster Abbey: King Richard II and Anne of Bohemia, c.1395–7 101

19 Bishopstone (Wilts.): external tomb arcade 115

20 Salisbury Cathedral: William Longesp´ee, Earl of Salisbury (d 1226) 119

21 St Mary’s, Warwick: the Beauchamp Chapel 123

22 St Mary’s, Warwick: Richard Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick (d 1439) 124

23 Cobham (Kent): the chancel 127

24 Cobham (Kent): Joan, Lady Cobham (d 1434) 133

25 Northleach (Glos.): Thomas Bush and his wife (d 1526) Rubbing of brass 138

26 Westley Waterless (Cambs.): Sir John de Creke and his wife, c.1340 146

27 Bodenham (Heref.): a lady and child, early fourteenth century 148

28 Exeter Cathedral: tomb monument of Bishop Edmund Stafford (d 1419)and, in front of it, brass of Canon William Langton (d 1413) 152

29 Brightwell Baldwin (Oxon.): Sir John Cottesmore (d 1439) and his wife 153

30 Avon Dassett (War.): a deacon, c.1220 155

31 York Minster: Archbishop Walter de Gray (d 1255) 156

32 Westminster Abbey: Edmund, Earl of Lancaster (d 1296) 158

33 Gloucester Cathedral: King Edward II, c.1330–5 160

34 Pucklechurch (Glos.): Eleanor, wife of William de Cheltenham, c.1350–5 162

35 Spilsby (Lincs.): bedesmen on the tomb of John, Lord Willoughby (c.1372) 169

36 Ross-on-Wye (Heref.): Judge William Rudhall (d 1529), end panel

37 Beverley Minster (Yorks.): the Percy Tomb, c.1330–40 171

38 Willoughby on the Wolds (Notts.): Sir Hugh Willoughby (d 1448),

39 Ely Cathedral: Bishop Hugh de Northwold (c.1250) 179

40 Hereford Cathedral: Canon Richard de la Barr (d 1386) Rubbing of brass 185

41 Hereford Cathedral: Dean Edmund Frocester (d 1529) Rubbing of brass 187

42 Dorchester Abbey (Oxon.): Abbot John de Sutton (d 1349) 190

43 St Albans Cathedral: Robert Beauvor, monk, c.1455 Rubbing of brass 193

44 Welwick (Yorks.): a priest, perhaps William de la Mare (d 1358) 195

45 Rippingale (Lincs.): Hugh Geboad, c.1280 196

46 Thurcaston (Leics.): John Mersdon (d 1426) Rubbing of brass 199

47 Dunstable Priory (Beds.): Richard Duraunt, c.1290 Rubbing of slab 202

48 Newton Regis (War.): a priest, perhaps John de la Warde, c.1330 205

49 Old Somerby (Lincs.): a knight of the Sleyt family, c.1310–30: horse

and esquire at feet of effigy 213

50 Verona, Italy: Cangrande della Scala (d 1329) 214

51 Elsing (Norfolk): Sir Hugh Hastings (d 1347) Rubbing of brass 217

52 Lingfield (Surrey): Reginald, Lord Cobham (d 1361) 219

53 Bottesford (Leics.): William, Lord Roos (d 1414) 229

54 Pucklechurch (Glos.): William de Cheltenham, c 1350–5 243

55 Ashbourne (Derby.): John Cokayne (d 1372) 244

56 Pembridge (Heref.): John Gour and his wife, c 1380 245

57 Crich (Derby.): William Wakebridge, c 1355 246

58 Chipping Campden (Glos.): William Grevel (d 1401) and his first wife

59 Nuffield (Oxon.): Benet English, c 1360 Rubbing of brass 255

60 Owston (Yorks.): Robert Hatfield and his wife, c 1409 Rubbing of brass 260

61 Little Wittenham (Berks.): Geoffrey Kidwelly (d 1483) 262

62 King’s Lynn (Norfolk): Adam de Walsoken (d 1349), merchant’s mark 264

63 Dorchester Abbey (Oxon.): Sir John Stonor (d 1354) 272

64 Deerhurst (Glos.): Sir John Cassy (d 1400) and his wife Rubbing of brass 273

65 Pembridge (Heref.): a serjeant, probably Nicholas Gour, and his wife,

66 Trent (Dorset): a serjeant, probably John Trevaignon, c.1335 278

67 Harlaxton (Lincs.): Thomas Ricard (d 1433) 281

68 Radbourne (Derby.): Peter de la Pole (d 1432) and his wife Rubbing

69 Northleigh (Oxon.): William Wilcotes and his wife, c.1410 292

70 Ewelme (Oxon.): Alice, Duchess of Suffolk (d 1475) 298

71 Southacre (Norfolk): Sir John Harsick (d 1384) and his wife Rubbing

72 Rand (Lincs.): a lady, probably of the Burdet family, c.1310 310

73 Sheldwich (Kent): Joan Mareys (d 1431) Rubbing of brass 317

74 Childrey (Berks.): William Fettiplace (d 1526) and his wife 322

75 Childrey (Berks.): Joan Strangbon (d 1477) 324

76 Ashby Folville (Leics.): Ralph Woodford (c.1485) Rubbing of incised slab 332

77 Dodford (Northants): Sir John Cressy (d 1445) 346

78 Kelshall (Herts.): Richard Adane (d 1435) and his wife 356

All identifications by county refer to the pre-1974 county boundaries

Sources for Illustrations

1–3, 8, 9, 10, 11, 15–16, 21–4, 26, 28–30, 34–6, 38, 42, 45, 46, 48, 50,53–6, 61–3, 65–7, 69, 70, 72, 74, 75, 77, 78, author; 14, 17, 25, 40, 41,

43, 46, 58, 60, 64, 73, H Martin Stuchfield; 4, 5, 12, 13, 37, 44, 57, SallyBadham; 47, 68, 76, collection of the late F A Greenhill; 18, 32 Dean andCanons of Westminster Abbey; 6, 20, John Crook; 7, Christopher Whittick; 27,

S Oosterwijk; 31, 39, National Monuments Record; 33, Courtauld Institute ofArt; 49, Deborah Bircham; 51, Richard K Morris; 52, A F Kersting; 71, Victoriaand Albert Museum

Abbreviated References

Full details of titles are to be found in the Bibliography

CCR Calendar of Close Rolls

CFR Calendar of Fine Rolls

Chichele’s Register Register of Henry Chichele, Archbishop of Canterbury,

1414–1443, ed E F Jacob (4 vols., Oxford, 1943–7)

J Coales (ed.), The Earliest English Brasses: Patronage,

Style and Workshops, 1270–1350 (London, 1987)

CPR Calendar of Patent Rolls

JBAA Journal of the British Archaeological Association

Lincs Church Notes Lincolnshire Church Notes made by Gervase Holles, A.D.

1634–A.D 1642, ed R E G Cole (Lincoln Record

Society, 1, 1911)

MBS Bulletin Monumental Brass Society Bulletin

ODNB Oxford Dictionary of National Biography

TMBS Transactions of the Monumental Brass Society

Office)

VCH Victoria County History

Isobel Thornley’s Bequest to the University of London

In the past, as now, monuments have attracted the admiring attentions of thecurious Well before the Reformation visitors flocked to Westminster Abbey tosee the tombs of England’s kings Such, indeed, was the commotion caused attimes by these visitors that the monks had to lay down rules governing theirproper conduct.¹ Some of those who, over the centuries, have taken an interest

in monuments have been attracted to them principally by the fame of those theycommemorate When looking at monuments, they have felt themselves in someway paying tribute through them to the persons whose memory they honour Such

is in all probability the attitude of many of those who visit Bladon to see thegrave of Sir Winston Churchill Others, however, have been attracted more by thebeauty or poignancy of the monument itself Queen Charlotte is said to have burstinto tears when she set eyes on Banks’s famous sculpture of Penelope Boothby atthe Royal Academy exhibition.² Whatever may be the main interest of those whotake an interest in monuments, however, one thing holds true: the monumentmust arouse a reaction Monuments were expected to provoke a reaction fromonlookers If they failed to provoke such, they had failed in their primary purpose;they were of no value

In the churches of England and Wales there remain many thousands ofmonuments from the Middle Ages Some of these are elaborate structures, adornedwith canopies or entablatures, depicting the deceased in his or her finery andattended by weepers and angels Others are smaller, more run-of-the-mill affairs,less obviously pretentious Those of early date typically take the form of a simplecoffin slab, carved or incised on the surface with a cross The more stylish and

¹ Miss Barbara Harvey in a letter to The Times, 9 Sept 1980.

² N Pevsner, Derbyshire (Harmondsworth, 1978), 62 The monument was destined for

Ash-bourne, where it remains.

opulent of late medieval monuments might comprise an effigy, tomb chest, canopy,and inscriptions; the smaller and cheaper, an effigy and inscription—or just aninscription Monuments might be fashioned from freestone, Purbeck marble,alabaster, wood, or brass They might be sculpted or incised, set in the floor orplaced against a wall The sheer variety of medieval monuments attests the widesocial range of the patron class Those commemorated by them embraced both theexalted and the relatively humble in society It is likely that more monuments of themedieval period survive in England than in any area of equivalent size in Europe.³

On the Continent the hazards of war, revolution, destruction, and rebuilding haveall exacted a heavy toll over the centuries In England that toll has, relativelyspeaking, been much lower Not only have English churches escaped the worst ofthe ravages of religious, political, and military upheaval; north of the Channel therewas much less rebuilding of fabrics in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centurieswhen medieval sculpture was held in low esteem It is worth remembering, nonethe less, that a great many monuments have still been lost In the course of thereligious struggles of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries huge numbers ofmonuments were defaced or entirely destroyed As a result of the Dissolution of theMonasteries, virtually all monuments in the religious houses declared redundantwere condemned to the scrap heap In the towns and cities, constant reordering ofchurch interiors has ensured a lower survival rate of monuments than in countrychurches All the same, the corpus of funerary sculpture which has come down to

us is still of some size

The study of medieval monuments has a long history Interest in monuments

of the medieval period was already beginning before the period itself had ended.Perhaps the first to record monuments of note—or monuments to persons ofnote—was William Worcester (d 1482), sometime secretary of Sir John Fastolf,who sometimes mentioned tombs in his notes of his travels round the realm Afterthe Reformation there was a growth of interest in medieval funerary sculptureamong the new antiquary class By the late sixteenth century monuments wereattracting the attention of the heralds, who valued their often elaborate armorials

as evidence of family pedigrees and entitlement to bear arms John Philipot(1588/9–1645), Somerset Herald, assembled a rich harvest of notes from thechurches of his native Kent Slightly later, Elias Ashmole (1617–92), WindsorHerald, went on note-taking tours of churches of the Thames Valley.⁴ In the

³ Although there are a large number of incised slabs in France, western Germany, and the Low Countries, these survive in quantity only from the late 15th cent According to the ‘Monuments Historiques’ database (http://www.culture.gouv.fr/culture/inventai/patrimoine/), in France there are 365 incised slabs from the 13th cent., 620 from the 14th, 532 from the 15th, and 1,292 from the 16th No counterpart is found in continental Europe to the vast quantities of early

cross slab grave covers in England For medieval monuments in Flanders, see R van Belle, Vlakke

grafmonumenten en memorietaferelen met persoonsafbeeldingen in West-Vlaanderen: Een inventaris, funeraire symboliek en overzicht van het kostuum (Bruges, 2007), from which it is again clear that

numbers only substantially increase from the late 15th cent I am grateful to Paul Cockerham and Jerome Bertram for their advice on these matters.

⁴ ‘A Book of Church Notes by John Philipot, Somerset Herald’, ed C R Councer, in A

Seventeenth Century Miscellany (Kent Records, 17, 1960); Oxford, Bodleian Lib., MS Ashmole 850.

years of tension and instability which preceded the Civil War the recording ofmonuments was informed by greater urgency Sir William Dugdale (1605–86),the Garter King of Arms, was one figure concerned to record the country’s moreimportant monuments lest their witness might be lost for ever Dugdale’s ‘Book

of Monuments’, compiled in 1640–1, with drawings by William Sedgwick, isperhaps the most remarkable and beautiful book on monuments ever produced.⁵Monuments became the subject of more serious scholarly study in the mid-eighteenth century For the first time, they were considered worthy of attention

in their own right rather than for the genealogical information they carried Thebackground to this shift of emphasis lay in the rise of gentlemanly antiquarianstudies in the early years of the century The foundation of the Society ofAntiquaries in 1707 betokened a new attitude to the past: one which was at oncemore inquisitive and more respectful The physical remains of the past were nowseen as one of the means by which the secrets of that past could be unlocked andexplored to tell a story of national origins A key figure in these developmentswas Richard Gough (d 1809), a Hertfordshire landowner, and Director of the

Society of Antiquaries Gough’s Sepulchral Monuments represented a milestone in

the study of funerary sculpture in England.⁶ The inspiration for Gough’s work was

an ambitious project on which, half a century earlier, the Abb´e Montfaucon hadembarked in France Montfaucon, a textual scholar, antiquary and historian, had sethimself the task of compiling a history of his native land illustrated by manuscripts,sculptures, seals, and inscriptions—antiquities of any sort which could shed light

on the habits of past ages.⁷ To this end, he had employed a remarkable man, theroyal equerry Roger de Gaigni`eres, to gather the necessary source materials for him

In the space of a decade or so Gaigni`eres, with two assistants, had accumulated ahuge collection of drawings of sculptures, inscriptions, seals but, above all, of churchmonuments Gaigni`eres’ drawings, later worked by Montfaucon’s draughtsmeninto plates, formed one of the most remarkable records of funerary sculpture evermade

The work of Montfaucon and Gaigni`eres spurred Gough to undertake acomparable project for England with the ambition of describing and illustrating thetombs and effigies of the aristocracy and detailing the lives of those commemorated.Gough went further than Montfaucon in seeking to use monuments as a source formanners broadly defined The art of monuments, he believed, could reflect culturaland political change, mirroring in its iconography shifts in social, religious, andsartorial taste Montfaucon, while assigning dates to monuments and arrangingthem in chronological order, had not exploited them for illustrations of nationalmodes or attempted to compare monuments with one another; nor had he laid

⁷ For Montfaucon’s project, see F Haskell, History and its Images: Art and the Interpretation of

the Past (New Haven and London, 1993), 131–5.

down any rules by which they might be judged In Gough’s view, monumentsrepaid examination for their wider meaning because it was from such sources thatareas of the nation’s past on which written sources were silent could be opened

up for investigation.⁸ Gough went to considerable lengths to procure illustrationsfor his volumes, begging them from friends, exploiting the resources of the Society

of Antiquaries, and commissioning draughtsmen such as John Carter to makedrawings for him A relatively wealthy man, he met all the most substantial costshimself He saw national honour as requiring the construction of a visual taxonomy

of this kind and he was confident of being able to advance beyond the standardsset by continental scholars

Gough’s Sepulchral Monuments was rightly judged a remarkable achievement.

Quite apart from its scale, which was unprecedented, it set new standards for thedescription, recording, and illustration of medieval monuments It was a tribute

to its achievement that it attracted a generation of imitators In 1817 Charles

Stothard embarked on the publishing of what was to become his Monumental

Effigies of Great Britain, a work in a similar vein which reaped the benefit of

another forty years of scholarship.⁹ Stothard prided himself on the quality of hisprints, which were noticeably more accurate than Gough’s In 1826 Edward Blore

published his Monumental Remains of Noble and Eminent Persons, another volume

in the same tradition which combined prints of distinguished monuments withaccompanying text on those commemorated by them.¹⁰ It was Gough, however,who had paved the way, showing how the systematic comparison of visual mediacould elicit historical information and demonstrating the contribution which thestudy of monuments could make to the evaluation of England’s past

The study of monuments received a further boost in the early nineteenthcentury from the Catholic revival in the Church of England The growth ofritualism associated with the Cambridge Movement and the Camden Societystimulated a renewal of enthusiasm for medieval culture and for Gothic as thestyle most appropriate for the setting of worship; and this, in turn, fed into andencouraged an interest in medieval monuments In the mid-nineteenth century

a number of specialist works dealing with monuments were published None ofthese even began to approach Gough’s project in scale or ambition; a few, however,pushed the boundary of inquiry forward into the hitherto largely unexplored areas

of early and non- or semi-effigial monuments The two monographs published

by Charles Boutell and E L Cutts on early stone sculpture were of particularimportance in this respect;¹¹ Boutell was also responsible for a well-received volume

of folio plates on brasses.¹² At the same time, articles and notes in local antiquarianperiodicals focused attention on the monuments of particular churches or localities

⁸ R Sweet, Antiquaries The Discovery of the Past in Eighteenth-Century Britain (London, 2004).

⁹ C A Stothard, Monumental Effigies of Great Britain (London, 1817).

¹⁰ The text was by Philip Bliss.

¹¹ C Boutell, Christian Monuments in England and Wales (London, 1854); E L Cutts, A

Manual for the Study of Sepulchral Slabs and Crosses of the Middle Ages (London, 1849).

¹² C Boutell, The Monumental Brasses of England: A Series of Engravings on Wood (London,

1849).

Periodically reports were published of the discovery, or rediscovery, of monumentsburied or cast aside in less respectful times.¹³

It was around this time that a development occurred which was to have banefullong-term consequences for the study of medieval church monuments This was theseparation of the study of brasses from the study of other types of monument Thereason for the turn of events was simple: it was possible to ‘rub’ brasses—that is, totake tracings of them with heelball The growth in popularity of brass rubbing inthe nineteenth century led to a concentration of interest on brasses relative to othertypes of monument Societies of brass rubbing ‘collectors’ were established in thetwo ancient universities Collections of rubbings were built up by enthusiasts such

as A W Franks and Herbert Haines In the years from 1860 a series of textbooks

on brasses of varying quality were published Macklin’s Monumental Brasses, which

appeared in 1890, was to prove the most popular and most enduring: it was toremain in print for well over half a century.¹⁴ The most substantial and penetrating

study, however, was Haines’s Manual of Monumental Brasses of 1861, a remarkable

work which broke new ground in its originality and rigour of method.¹⁵ Hainesnot only placed the study of brasses in an art-historical context; he also, crucially,attempted to identify styles of engraving and to speculate on workshop origins.The seminal quality of Haines’s insights has long been acknowledged At the time,however, those insights fell on stony ground, attracting little interest from theauthors of textbooks whose approach remained resolutely costume-driven In asuccession of studies for the general reader brasses were classified and describedpurely by reference to the costume of the commemorated; the possibility that theremight be alternative lines of inquiry was all but ignored The costume methodology

was also followed in the study of incised slabs Greenhill’s Incised Effigial Slabs,

comprehensive as it was in recording, was unoriginal in matters of interpretation.¹⁶

In the first half of the twentieth century, when brass rubbing was in decline,writing on brasses got stuck in a methodological rut A seminal article by

J P C Kent on style, which took up and developed some of Haines’s ideas, wasvirtually ignored by specialists in the field.¹⁷ Only in the 1970s, in the wake of arenewed brass rubbing boom, were new advances in understanding of the subjectmade On the initiative of a younger generation of scholars, stylistic analysis wastaken up with vigour and made the means to a systematic classification of pre-Reformation brasses.¹⁸ At the same time, a series of innovative studies was made

¹³ For example, R Westmacott, ‘Monumental Effigies at Gonalston, Notts.’, Archaeological Jnl.

6 (1849), 5–13.

¹⁴ H W Macklin, Monumental Brasses (London, 1890, 7th edn., 1953).

¹⁵ H Haines, A Manual of Monumental Brasses (London, 1861, repr Bath, 1970).

¹⁶ Greenhill, Incised Effigial Slabs.

¹⁷ J P C Kent, ‘Monumental Brasses: A New Classification of Military Effigies, c.1360–c.1485’,

JBAA, 3rd ser 12 (1949), 70–97.

¹⁸ R Emmerson, ‘Monumental Brasses: London Design, c.1420–1485’, JBAA 131 (1978), 50–78; R Greenwood, ‘Haines’s Cambridge School of Brasses’, TMBS 11 (1971), 2–12;

S Badham, Brasses from the North-East: A Study of the Brasses made in Yorkshire, Lincolnshire,

Durham and Northumberland (London, 1979); eadem, ‘The Suffolk School of Brasses’, TMBS 13

(1980), 41–67.

of other aspects of the subject John Page-Phillips devoted a major monograph topalimpsests—that is, to brasses taken up and reused—while Paul Binski, NicholasRogers, and John Blair looked afresh at the earliest brasses, arguing for theirorigins in the early fourteenth rather than the thirteenth century.¹⁹ Much of thisrevisionist work received appropriately magisterial summation in Malcolm Norris’s

Monumental Brasses: The Memorials and The Craft, published in 1977 and 1978

respectively.²⁰

While brasses thus emerged as the subject of detailed scholarly attention in theirown right, the study of sculpted effigies was absorbed into the history of sculpture.For the most part, those who wrote about stone and alabaster effigies were thosewho wrote about the medieval carved stonework more generally In 1912 E S Priorand A Gardner published a massive illustrated textbook on medieval sculpturewhich treated tomb effigies alongside statuary on church fac¸ades, figurative carving

on reredoses, and other major examples of the carver’s art.²¹ For purposes ofclassification Prior and Gardner grouped tomb effigies into ‘schools’ associatedwith the workshops called into being by building programmes at cathedrals andgreater churches Methodologically, there was much to be said for treating effigialfunerary sculpture alongside related effigial art: funerary and ‘fac¸ade’ figures werenot infrequently the work of the same carvers None the less, it was unfortunatethat the study of sculpted monuments should have become separated from thestudy of brasses and—for that matter—from that of incised and cross slabs Notonly was little or no distinction made by contemporaries between the various forms

of monument; for us today it makes excellent sense to treat the different types ofmonuments together, for only in that way can an overall view of the subject begained In contexts where the intellectual approach is purely art historical, theremay well be a case for assimilating monuments to the broader study of sculpture.But where the social and cultural significance of monuments becomes the centre

of attention, it makes far better sense to look at all types of monument together.The appropriation of the study of sculpted effigies to art history could havehad the highly beneficial effect of encouraging a more sophisticated methodologythan that employed at the time in the study of brasses In some ways, however,this was not to be the case As Harry Tummers has pointed out, the concept of

‘schools’ as used by Prior and Gardner was actually a highly problematical one.From much of the medieval period quite simply too few effigies survive to allowfirm identification of particular ‘schools’ or workshops Only from the end of thefourteenth century does analysis by workshop begin to carry conviction To thiscriticism could be added the secondary charge that the co-authors’ hypothesis ofsuch workshops being urban-based and associated with building programmes at

¹⁹ J Page-Phillips, Palimpsests: The Backs of Monumental Brasses (London, 1980); Coales (ed.),

Earliest English Brasses.

²⁰ M W Norris, Monumental Brasses: The Memorials (2 vols., London, 1977); idem, Monumental

Brasses: The Craft (London, 1978).

²¹ E S Prior and A Gardner, An Account of Medieval Figure-Sculpture in England (Cambridge,

1912).

the big cathedrals and abbeys is itself open to question There are good grounds forthinking that for long production was based at or near quarries.²² The ill-foundednotion of ‘schools’ of sculptured effigies may have sent generations of researchers

on the wrong track in their search for the men who carved the effigies

Prior and Gardner’s work, like that of other contemporary writers, also sufferedfrom the drawback of adopting a somewhat old-fashioned approach to dating

In common with the writers on brasses, Prior and Gardner relied principally onthe details of armour and costume in assigning dates to effigies These details,however, were often insecurely dated, and an element of circularity entered into thewhole business of dating as one ill-documented monument was dated by reference

to another Surprisingly for art historians, Prior and Gardner paid little or noattention to the possibility of style as an aid to deciding date When they addressedmatters of artistic style, their remarks were generally vague and unconvincing.Only after the Second World War was the costume-based approach, with its roots

in the work of the antiquaries, replaced by a more methodologically rigorousone which recognized a place for style The turning-point was represented by the

publication in 1955 of Laurence Stone’s Sculpture in Britain: The Middle Ages,

the first work by an English author to attempt to ‘evolve a detailed chronologicalclassification on the basis of stylistic development’.²³ Although only a small part

of Stone’s book was devoted to funerary monuments, Stone offered an exemplarydiscussion of the evolution of medieval figure sculpture from the point of view ofattitude and treatment of the body and representation of drapery folds Stone’smethodological assumption was clear: details of armour and fashion changed tooslowly or irregularly to be of use as tools of analysis or guides to date; consideration

of style and attitude must come first

Stone’s pioneering work ushered in a new approach to the study of medievaltomb sculpture, one more firmly rooted in the techniques of art history It wasthe sort of approach which, outside England, was to find its grandest expression

in Panofsky’s Tomb Sculpture: Its Changing Aspects from Ancient Egypt to Bernini.²⁴

It would be wrong to suggest that Stone’s work was accorded the immediatecompliment of flattery by imitation; it was not In the 1960s and 1970s themonuments of the post-Reformation period benefited from a far greater degree

of attention than those of the Middle Ages Not until 1980 was a monographpublished which applied Stone’s methodology to the study of a discrete body of

medieval sculpture This was Tummers’s Early Secular Effigies in England: The

Thirteenth Century.²⁵ Since then, Phillip Lindley’s work has applied art historicaltechniques to the study of funerary sculpture of the fourteenth and fifteenthcenturies, most notably to the monuments at Abergavenny.²⁶ At the same time, a

²² See below, 64–5.

²³ L Stone, Sculpture in Britain: The Middle Ages (Harmondsworth, 1955).

²⁴ E Panofsky, Tomb Sculpture: Its Changing Aspects from Ancient Egypt to Bernini (London and

New York, 1964).

²⁵ H A Tummers, Early Secular Effigies in England: The Thirteenth Century (Leiden, 1980).

²⁶ P Lindley, Gothic to Renaissance: Essays on Sculpture in England (Stamford, 1995); idem, ‘Two

Fourteenth-Century Tomb Monuments at Abergavenny and the Mournful End of the Hastings

succession of articles in Church Monuments, the journal of the Church Monuments

Society, has adopted broadly similar methodologies As a result, the study ofsculpted monuments has found itself much more firmly rooted in the discipline

of art history than has the parallel study of brasses The medieval sculpted effigy,sprung from the same stock as the niche figure, has made it the natural object ofappreciation of those whose primary interest lies in the history of sculpture as aform of art

One of the most urgent tasks facing students of medieval commemoration

is to achieve the reintegration of the two branches of the subject There is nointellectual justification for the separate study of brasses and sculpted monuments.The distinction between the two made its unfortunate appearance 150 years ago

in the wake of the first brass rubbing ‘boom’ Antiquaries such as Richard Goughand the other pioneers in the field of monuments gave equal and ready attention

to all forms of commemoration; they did not divide into specialists concentrating

on one form or another The market in funerary sculpture was one which evolvedrapidly in the Middle Ages, showing remarkable sensitivity to changes in taste andfashion Types of monument popular in one century might be less popular—or,

at least, less popular with the elite—in the next Types of stone popular in onecentury might be less popular much later Purbeck marble was fashionable in thethirteenth century, but less so in the fourteenth; alabaster swept all before it in thefifteenth The rise of brasses was one phase or episode in the constant evolution

of taste To focus attention on only one type of monument is to gain a picture ofonly part of the overall market in commemorative sculpture

A lead in the direction of reintegration has already been given by Jonathan Finch

in his study of church monuments in Norfolk before 1850.²⁷ Finch’s approach hasbeen to examine the totality of monuments in four areas of the county, establishingthe chronology of their distribution and evaluating the sample against socialbackground to achieve an understanding of the development of commemorationand the motives behind it Finch looks at cross slabs, wall monuments, brasses,incised slabs, and ledger stones; he also takes note of lost monuments recorded byantiquaries He does not, however, consider churchyard monuments His method

is that of the archaeologist He pays little attention to matters of style and designexcept to the extent that these are indicative of social norms His prime concern is toexamine the full range of monuments as a measure of the place of commemoration

in the structures and material culture of society

Finch’s approach attests a welcome development in the recent study of churchmonuments: namely, the appearance of a methodological diversity, which hashelped weaken traditional barriers and open up new avenues of research No longer

Earls of Pembroke’, in J R Kenyon and D M Williams (eds.), Cardiff: Architecture and Archaeology

in the Medieval Diocese of Llandaff (BAA Conference Transactions, 29, 2006).

²⁷ J Finch, Church Monuments in Norfolk before 1850: An Archaeology of Commemoration (British

Archaeological Reports British Series, 317, 2000) In 1980 brasses and sculpted monuments were brought together in a pioneering general survey of monuments—post-medieval as well as medieval:

B Kemp, English Church Monuments (London, 1980).

are methodologies confined principally to analysis of costume or workshops in thecase of brasses, or the history of sculpture in the case of other types of monument.Alternative ways of approaching and understanding monuments are being pursuedand explored The organization of production, for example, has been studied bynumerous scholars, notably Phillip Lindley and Sally Badham.²⁸ Regional studiesfocusing on monuments of the medieval period have been undertaken by B and

M Gittos and A McClain (as well as by Finch himself).²⁹ The role of monuments

in the creation and sustaining of family dynastic strategies has been analysed byhistorians of late medieval gentry society, including the present author.³⁰ Themonuments of children and cadaver effigies are genres which have received theattention of Sophie Oosterwijk.³¹ Growing interest has been shown in the record-ing and study of early cross slabs, with Peter Ryder building on the important work

of Laurence Butler.³² Behind this welcome diversity lies an increasing interest inmonuments by scholars who have developed methodologies in other disciplinesand are applying these to studies of funerary sculpture

A key aim of the present study is to offer an account of medieval churchmonuments which recognizes and accepts the current diversity of studies in thefield Rejecting the assumption that brasses should be considered apart from othertypes of monument, it will subject all commemorative forms used in the MiddleAges to review—cross slabs, relief effigies, incised slabs as well as brasses—theparticular emphasis on each varying according to the period and the subjectunder discussion Methodologically, the approach will be that of the historian.The corpus of monuments will be examined less as examples of fine art than asexpressions of the social, cultural, and religious assumptions of the age in whichthey were produced Particular attention will be given to the ways in which thosecommemorated represented themselves on their monuments, either through theireffigies or textually in epitaphs A strong emphasis will be placed on the roles whichmonuments played in the social and religious strategies of those who commissionedthem Monuments were conceived as performing principally two functions—those

of engaging the living in aid of the dead and providing evidence of the standing ofthe deceased and his family in the local community It is anticipated that by payingattention to the rich secular and religious discourses on monuments the kind ofsocio-historical contextualization will be achieved which has so successfully beendeveloped in their own period by the early modernists.³³

For the medievalist, monuments provide an important, and yet a strangelyneglected, source for the reconstruction of past lives For more than a few among

²⁸ See below, 63–4 ²⁹ See below, 40–2.

³⁰ N E Saul, Death, Art, and Memory in Medieval England: The Cobham Family and their

Monuments, 1300–1500 (Oxford, 2001).

³¹ S Oosterwijk, ‘Chrysoms, Shrouds and Infants: A Question of Terminology’, CM 15 (2000),

44–64; eadem, ‘Food for Worms—Food for Thought: The Appearance and Interpretation of the

‘‘Verminous’’ Cadaver in Britain and Europe’, CM 20 (2005), 40–80. ³² See below, 43.

³³ See in particular N Llewellyn, Funeral Monuments in Post-Reformation England (Cambridge, 2000); P Cockerham, Continuity and Change: Memorialisation and the Cornish Funeral Monument

Industry (British Archaeological Reports British Series, 412, 2006).

the commemorated, the monument may be the only historical source to have comedown to us This is most likely to be the case in respect of such groups as therural freeholders, lesser gentry, merchants, and minor clergy, for whom there isotherwise little or no evidence of interiority and personal taste For these groups,the witness provided by the monument will be of especial value in opening awindow onto a world of social and religious belief otherwise largely hidden Forthe better born, and thus the better documented, there is likely to be at least someother source material, either documentary or physical In these cases the witness ofthe monument will be of use in supplementing that from other sources—offeringeither an original perspective or, at the very least, a perspective different from thatoffered by the documentary corpus.

Whatever evidence the monument may afford will be interrogated in the sameway as that of any other source or ‘text’ No particular theoretical claim is made herefor the unique character of monuments as a source; and certainly no attempt will

be made to privilege them over all other sources It may be the case, as sometimessuggested, that direct communication with the artefacts of a past society bringsinsights which other classes of evidence cannot: it is naturally tempting for students

of monuments to suppose that that is so Yet it would be wrong to deny that suchartefacts raise problems of interpretation just as much as any other material depositfrom the past Monuments may in some cases be fictions, deliberately designed

to mislead It has been suggested that this is so with a few very spectacular series

of monuments, such as those at Cobham (Kent).³⁴ The intention here is simply

to place the evidence of monuments alongside that from other sources in such away as to ensure a dialogue between the different classes of evidential deposit Asthe late R Allen Brown said, the past is a seamless web, and the study of materialobjects is just one of the techniques by which it may be explored.³⁵

An important question raised by a study of this kind is the relationship betweenthe monuments and the society or culture which produced them Are monuments

to be seen principally as products and expressions of the structures of society; or arethey, rather, to be seen playing a role in shaping and constituting those structures?Should monuments, in other words, be seen as shedding light on the general history

of society, or is the relationship actually inverse: to understand monuments, do weneed to understand society first? The problem can be illustrated by a consideration

of the brass of John Mersdon (d 1426), rector of Thurcaston, at Thurcaston(Leics.) (Fig 46) This is a brass of considerable grandeur and complexity: certainlygrander than most memorials to parochial clergy of the late Middle Ages Itssize and ambition tell us that Mersdon must have been someone of more thanlocal importance Are we, in that case, entitled to use the brass as evidence ofMersdon’s worldly and material success? There is good reason to suppose that weare, particularly since the inscription tells us that he was a canon of St George’s

³⁴ Saul, Death, Art, and Memory, 114–17.

³⁵ For an eloquent plea for greater dialogue between historians, architectural historians and

archaeologists, see R Allen Brown’s Inaugural Lecture, ‘Too Many Mansions’, in his Castles,

Conquest and Charters: Collected Papers (Woodbridge, 1989), 370–87.

Chapel, Windsor Yet the evidence of the brass only takes us so far A case could beargued that the real key to an understanding of Mersdon’s career is held not by thebrass but by the documentary sources for his life Without an analysis of the body

of sources which tells us about Mersdon’s further appointments and connections,the picture given by the brass is incomplete The brass, for example, tells us nothingabout his connections with the long-lived Elizabeth of Juliers, countess of Kent,evidently a patron

There is no wholly satisfactory solution to the problem of methodology, for theprecise balance between monument and context will vary from case to case There

is no doubt that a knowledge of the social and cultural context of a monumentcan enrich our understanding of that monument and assist in locating sources oftension and contradiction within it What is usually more difficult to establish isthe performative role of the monument—that is, its role in the construction andstructuring of social and religious relationships One possible solution is to think interms of a relationship of mutuality, of a complex interplay of ideas and influencesbetween the monument and society, with monuments playing a role in shapingcontemporary realities while at the same time being shaped by them We can take,for example, the great heraldic displays on some late medieval knightly tombs, such

as that of Reginald, Lord Cobham (d 1361) at Lingfield (Fig 52) These displays,consisting of the blazons of men who forged ties of brotherhood on the battlefields

of France, afford evidence both of the strength of contemporary chivalric feeling and

of the role which that sentiment played in shaping commemorative taste Yet thecreation and assembling of the armorials also attests something else: the role whichthe monuments themselves played in affirming and legitimizing status—in otherwords, in structuring social relationships The armorials on the tomb chests areillustrative of the monument’s function as both a bearer and creator of social realities.Yet there are very different contexts in which the monument can be seen more

clearly as just the bearer of truth An obvious instance is provided by the grisly transi

or cadaver monuments of the late Middle Ages The only way of explaining theseextraordinary creations is by looking at developments in contemporary religiousand artistic expression to see how these could have influenced and encouraged thecult of the macabre There is no simple or mechanistic solution to the problem ofthe relationship between monuments and social reality The problem here is not, ofcourse, one unique to the study of monuments; it is encountered in the contextualstudy of any art form, whether visual or otherwise The approach adopted inthis book will be to emphasize the variety of interaction afforded by monuments.The precise form of the interactions, it will be shown, is apt to vary according tocircumstance and time

The structure and arrangement of the book are both reasonably straightforward.The book opens with a discussion of the monuments of the pre-Conquest period,

an era whose monuments have generally been overlooked in synoptic treatments

of the subject It then proceeds to a consideration of the chronological andgeographical distribution of monuments and an assessment of the scale of post-medieval losses The next two chapters consider the organization of monument

production and the operation of the market in bringing patron and producertogether A discussion of the main functions of monuments then follows, with theemphasis placed on the role of the monument in assisting strategies for salvation andproclaiming and attesting the deceased’s status After this, an analysis of the visualqualities of monuments identifies the principal components of the monumentand indicates how these helped to articulate its messages to the beholder Aseries of three chapters examines the main classes of effigial monument as defined

by rank—clerical, knightly, and civilian—showing how each incorporated andreflected the self-image of the commemorated while at the same time performing arole in promoting worldly aspirations The monuments of women and men of law,

and transi or cadaver monuments are each accorded attention in a series of later

chapters A final chapter looks at the textual discourse on monuments, exploring itscharacter and meaning, and suggesting what can be learned about the construction

of the social identity of the commemorated

Commemoration in Early Medieval England

The origins of medieval sepulchral commemoration in England are to be founddeep in the Anglo-Saxon period As early as the late ninth century in some parts

of England grave markers were being produced in what amounted to industrialquantities The scale of funerary commemoration in pre-Conquest England caneasily be underestimated The great majority of early grave slabs are poorlypreserved: many, indeed, are barely recognizable as grave slabs at all Only fromthe mid-twelfth century do funerary monuments survive in reasonable enoughcondition as to catch the eye Yet there can be no doubting the existence of awidely disseminated Christian commemorative culture well before the Conquest

By the tenth century the output of grave slabs, relative to the size of the population,reached levels close to those reached in the boom years of the thirteenth century.For all the evidence of continuity in the practice of commemoration, however,

it is important to recognize that significant changes took place in the honouring

of the dead between the eleventh century and the thirteenth In the first place,there was a shift in the geography of burial, and thus in the geography ofcommemoration Before the eleventh century the burials of non-royal layfolk hadalmost invariably been extra-mural; after this time there was a move to burial withinthe church Simultaneously, there was a change in the character of monuments

In the early Middle Ages tomb slabs had mostly been non-effigial, and decorationhad taken a geometric or other abstract form From the mid-twelfth centuryeffigies in the likeness of the deceased were being commissioned—initially forelite monuments, and later for a wider class of patron Between them, these twodevelopments were to transform the character of commemoration in English—andEuropean—churches Before their implications are considered, however, it isnecessary to look in more detail at the scale and character of commemoration inEngland before the Conquest

T H E E A R L I E S T E N G L I S H F U N E R A RY S C U L P T U R EThe beginnings of the tradition of Christian funerary commemoration are to befound in the seventh and eighth centuries In the mainly pagan early Settlementperiod burials had usually been made in big cemeteries away from human habitationand in dominant and highly visible positions At Sutton Hoo (Suffolk), for example,

a major high-status cemetery stood on a bluff looking out over the estuary of the

River Deben Typically, display took the form of burying of goods below ground,not of the erection of a monument above From the later seventh century, however,

a series of changes took place, largely although not entirely associated with thecoming of Christianity A sharp decline occurred in the use of grave goods while,

at the same time, burials were increasingly concentrated in churchyards In most

of England public and communal funerary rituals came to be played out aboveground in the provision and articulation of funerary monuments

By the mid-Saxon period there was already a wide variety of monument typeswhich served both to commemorate the dead and make public statements aboutthem For the wealthy there were stone crosses, grave slabs, grave markers, andname stones For the less well off there were wooden grave markers, which wereprobably once far more common than their counterparts in stone.¹

The largest number of surviving crosses and grave markers of early to mid-Saxondate are to be found in the north of England It is not altogether clear why thepattern of distribution so heavily favours the north over the south One reason may

be that the extensive rebuildings of the late Middle Ages in southern and easternEngland took a heavy toll of early monuments On the other hand, the rich survivalsmay simply be an indication of the high level of cultural attainment in Golden AgeNorthumbria Only in the tenth century does the pattern of distribution begin toeven out, with increasing evidence of commemoration coming from other parts ofthe country

The most remarkable examples of the sculptor’s art from the early Middle Agesare the magnificent stone crosses which are a feature of the northern landscape.There can be little doubt that the main purpose of these crosses was to act assymbols of Christianity and as focal points for preaching In the case of theminority, however, which carry inscriptions mentioning a person, it is reasonable

to suppose that a secondary function was commemorative: the cross served as a

sculptural liber vitae A good example of such a cross is provided by the shaft at

Hackness (Yorks.), which is carved with a series of runic and Latin inscriptionsreferring to an Abbess Oedilburga (Æthelburh), probably the superior of Whitby’sdependent house there.² Crosses inscribed with personal names also survive atThornhill (Yorks.), Bewcastle (Cumbria), and Monkwearmouth and Jarrow (Co.Durham) It is likely, to judge from their weathered state, that most of thesefeatures stood outside A few, however, were probably set up inside the church

A good example is provided by the magnificent cross at Hexham associated withAcca, the eighth-century bishop of that diocese, which probably stood over hisgrave.³ At Whitby is a series of stele inscribed with personal names which, to judgefrom their lack of weathering, may have been set up inside

¹ Evidence for the marking of graves in wood has been found at Thwing (Yorks.): D M Hadley,

Death in Medieval England: An Archaeology (Stroud, 2001), 128.

² J Blair, The Church in Saxon Society (Oxford, 2005), 145–6 J Lang, Corpus of

Anglo-Saxon Stone Sculpture, III: York and Eastern Yorkshire (Oxford, 1991), 135–40, suggests Æthelburga,

abbess of Lyminge, and widow of King Edwin of Northumbria.

³ R Cramp, Corpus of Anglo-Saxon Stone Sculpture, I: County Durham and Northumberland

(2 vols., Oxford, 1984), i 174–6; ii plates 168–71.

In pre-Viking England probably the most frequently used commemorative formwas the grave slab or grave marker In many cases the two types appear to have beenlaid together, the marker acting as a headstone by the grave slab Where a markersurvives without a slab, however, it might have stood alone A large number ofthese grave markers are plain, lacking both decoration and epitaph.

In northern England the most remarkable series of grave markers is that ofseventh- to ninth-century date excavated in a cemetery beneath York Minster.These stones are all inscribed: they carry the name of the deceased, and may wellhave been erected above the graves of those whom they commemorated.⁴ In onecase, the wording is almost identical to that encountered in the late Middle Ages:

‘Here [beneath this?] turf [or tomb?] rest the [remains?] of Wulfhere’ The quality

of carving of the fragments is uneven, which suggests that a number of hands were

at work One of the markers was found in situ above a grave; the others, however,

had been reused as building material or, in a couple of cases, as parts of a compositestone coffin The lack of weathering of the stones has encouraged speculation thatthey may originally have been displayed within a building The high interest intextual matter is paralleled on contemporary monuments in the monastic churches

at Hartlepool, Monkwearmouth, and Jarrow.⁵ Most monuments in the region donot bear inscriptions The clear implication is that the York Minster stele and themonuments in the various monasteries were made for a literate, most probably for

an ecclesiastical, elite

In southern England there is less evidence of pre-Viking commemoration thanthere is in the north The two earliest commemorative sculptures appear to be thestones from Sandwich, now preserved in the Royal Museum at Canterbury Theseare both of square section with a flat upper end, and taper towards the bottom.From their roughly dressed character it is evident that the lower ends were insertedinto the ground while the upper ends were left exposed; in other words, the stonesacted as grave markers One of the stones is panelled on two faces, while the otherhas a runic inscription which has been read by some as a personal name Thearchaic design and the absence of Christian symbolism together point to a date ofperhaps the seventh century

F U N E R A RY S C U L P T U R E I N T H E M I D - S A XO N PE R I O D

By the mid-ninth century considerable variety was to be found in the memorative sculpture produced in much of England The variety was probablygreatest in the north Here monuments might take the form of upright crosses,recumbent slabs, or hogbacks (house-shaped stones); they might be set up alone

com-or be accompanied by headstones and footstones; deccom-oration could be abstract,

or incorporate plant, animal, or human ornament Inscriptions, where included,

⁴ Lang, Corpus of Anglo-Saxon Stone Sculpture, III 62–6.

⁵ Cramp, Corpus of Anglo-Saxon Stone Sculpture, I i 97–101, 123–4, 110–13 respectively.

might be in Latin or English, in Roman or runic alphabets Over time, as levels ofoutput increased, standardization was to set in, and motifs became repetitive Inthe ninth century, however, in most localities diversity was still apparent.

A notable feature of the grave furniture of this period is the religious ambivalence

of so much of its sculpture Relatively little of it is explicitly Christian On manyslabs the subject matter is predominantly zoomorphic in character A series of stonesexcavated beneath York Minster are decorated with the exotic motif of a wingedbeast—a maned biped with antecedents in pre-Viking English sculpture ‘Wyrm’imagery is often present, stones being decorated with dragons, snakes, maggots,and other creatures which devour the body, evoking the idea of damnation Oncross shafts ‘pagan’ scenes depicting the imagery of Norse mythology were popular.The figure of Weland, the flying smith, was carved at the bottom of a cross shaft atLeeds (Yorks.) Warrior imagery was also common on cross shafts On an example

at Middleton (Yorks.) the image of an armed man with his weapons occupies oneside, while a dragon entangled in his body is featured on the back

It is tempting to see the emergence of this strongly masculine, semi-pagan imagery

as reflecting the arrival of Scandinavian influence in England It is noticeable that itsemergence coincides with the late ninth-century Viking colonization of northernand eastern England Yet, despite the Nordic affinities, it is probably wrong tointerpret the imagery too strongly or exclusively in a pagan context In didacticterms its character can be seen as multivalent Although the artistic forms may benon-Christian, they are often employed in such a way as to assist in communicatingthe Christian message On the Leeds cross-shaft the figure of Weland sits in anartistic sequence with images of evangelists and ecclesiastics, birds and wingedbeasts It is possible that a parallel was intended between the Weland story andthe image of St John with his eagle On a cross at Nunburnholme (Yorks.)(Fig 1) a seated man with a sword and helmet was shown (in the cross’s originalarrangement) above a similar figure, probably a priest, also seated and holding arectangular object, probably a book It is possible that a visual analogy was beingset up between the two men’s accessories Ælfric’s pastoral letters reiterated theidea, widely held, that a priest’s books were his spiritual weapons Later, a carving

of the heroic figure Sigurd was added to the sculpture, partly obliterating the figure

of the priest According to the Norse legend, Sigurd killed a dragon and aftertasting its blood learned of the treacherous plans of his stepfather Reginn It ispossible that a reference was being made in the sculpture to the imagery of theeucharist: in each case enlightenment came through consumption of blood, in theone case the dragon’s blood and in the other the miraculously changed wine ofthe Host.⁶

The greater part of the stone sculpture of northern England in these years isnow thought to have been conceived in a principally Christian milieu If theecclesiastical authorities did not actually control its production, they may still

⁶ V Thompson, Dying and Death in Later Anglo-Saxon England (Woodbridge, 2004), 151 For

detailed discussion of the Nunburnholme cross, a complex product and the work of two main

sculptors, see Lang, Corpus of Anglo-Saxon Stone Sculpture, III 189–93.

Figure 1 Nunburnholme (Yorks.): cross shaft, probably ninth century

have exercised influence in the choice of imagery The ambivalence of the subjectmatter gives every impression of having been deliberate The Church was striving

to impart its core message to a conservative and, in some cases, a pagan or recentlypagan upper class On cross shafts it made perfect sense to place the secular andspiritual imagery together so as to suggest parallels between the secular subjectsand the essentials of Christian teaching It is highly unlikely that the parallelswent unnoticed Northern England at this time was peopled by a populationwhich, though of mixed background and religion, shared a common cultural andsymbolic language ‘Wyrm’ imagery, warrior figures, and heroic and zoomorphicart all embraced both secular and spiritual interpretations That, indeed, was part

of the repertory’s attraction If a dragon—a mythical beast—could be seen byviewers as the devil of the Book of the Revelation, that made it all the moresuitable for inclusion on a gravestone Ninth- and tenth-century grave sculpturerepresented an attempt by the Church to harness the resources of a powerful layaristocratic culture to the needs of a new, but not entirely alien, Christian culture

of salvation

F U N E R A RY S C U L P T U R E I N T H E L AT E S A XO N PE R I O DUntil the ninth century the bulk of the evidence for the development of funerarysculpture comes from northern England In the south there is little indication of

a demand for grave stones comparable with that in the culturally more advancedkingdom of Northumbria In the later Saxon period, however, the evidence ofcommemoration in the midland and southern counties becomes more plentiful.For the first time, there are signs of a sizeable market emerging south of the Trent,

in particular in Lincolnshire and the east Midlands Simultaneously, a major shift

of emphasis occurred in the iconography of tomb sculpture In place of the heroicand zoomorphic imagery of earlier years, a stronger emphasis was placed on thecross as the central instrument of salvation

In many ways the most remarkable monument of the mid-Saxon period is thesemi-effigial slab at Whitchurch (Hants) (Fig 2) This commemorates a lady of the

Figure 2 Whitchurch (Hants): monument of Frithburga, late ninth century

name Frithburga and is probably of late ninth-century date.⁷ The slab representssomething of a turning point in the history of monumental sculpture in southernEngland In the first place, it is significant for the novelty of its design In place

of the tapering sides and flat upper end, the hallmark of the Sandwich stones, ithas parallel sides and a semicircular head Around the outer edge of the head, so

as to be legible when the stone was set in the ground, is the following inscription:

‘+hic co[rpu]s [f]ri[db]urg[ae req]uie[sc]it in pace [s]epultum’ (‘here reststhe body of Frithburga buried in peace’) Second, and more remarkably, the slab’sexplicitly Christian iconography broke new ground In the semicircular recess isthe half-length figure of Christ, identifiable by his cruciform nimbus His rightarm is raised in blessing, while in his left arm he holds aloft a book

Nowhere in southern England is there an antecedent to the Whitchurch slab

or even a close parallel to it Stylistically, the piece seems to stand alone in thefunerary sculpture of the mid-Saxon period It is well executed and stylisticallyaccomplished, showing a confident handling of the component parts It shareswith some of the richer grave slabs of seventh- and eighth-century Northumbria

a strong interest in textual discourse Where it represents a new departure is inits employment of specifically Christocentric figure sculpture From the turn ofthe ninth and the tenth centuries, particularly in southern England, a new interestwas to be shown in the use of Christian symbolism in funerary art Over time,particularly after the absorption of the Danelaw, the more ambivalent artisticlanguage of the Northumbrian grave markers was to find itself pushed to one side

An artistic language with the Christian message of salvation at its heart was to takeits place

If a growing interest was taken in explicitly Christian symbolism, however, it wasnot in figure sculpture that it was to find its most characteristic expression; rather, itwas to be in the more generalized adoption of the cross motif In northern Englandthe cross had long featured in the imagery of grave slabs alongside non-Christianheroic and zoomorphic motifs Sometimes, indeed, as we have seen, standingcrosses of Hiberno-Norse design had acted as monuments in their own right Onfunerary sculpture of tenth-century date and later, however, the cross was to beaccorded far greater prominence than had been the case before Supporting imagerywas pared down, paving the way for the emergence of a leaner, more austere artisticstyle Other than on coped tomb chests, where narrative sequences continued tofeature, the emphasis was firmly on the cross as the central symbol of personalsalvation

What lay behind this new emphasis on Christian imagery? In part, the answer

is to be found in the distinctive cultural ambience of southern England Thesculptors of Wessex, the main southern kingdom, had a strong sense of their role

as defenders of the Christian artistic tradition—a sense which had been instilled

in them by Alfred and his successors in the Viking wars To this background, notonly did the cross have the attraction of giving clear visible expression to the values

⁷ D Tweddle, M Biddle, B Kjolbye-Biddle, Corpus of Anglo-Saxon Stone Sculpture, IV:

South-East England (Oxford, 1995), 271–2.

which the Wessex men were defending; its more extensive use could be associatedwith the expansion of Wessex power which Edward the Elder and Æthelstan were

to achieve in the tenth century The process of dissemination into former Vikingterritory is illustrated by the imagery of a remarkable slab excavated at Cambridgeand probably produced in that town At the head of the slab is a unique motifrepresenting the keys of the kingdom and the cross in one It has been suggestedthat the motif is to be associated with the iconography of St Peter’s keys in theBenedictional of St Æthelwold, produced at Winchester.⁸ If this was the case, then

a vivid insight is afforded into the dissemination in eastern England of ideas whichhad their origins in the Wessex heartland

When a major iconographic change of this kind occurs, it is tempting to establish

a connection not only with immediate circumstances, but with larger religious andcultural changes in society In this instance, it is possible to suggest a connectionwith a major shift in contemporary religion, the growing acceptance by the Church

of the value of intercessory prayer It had long been a central Christian beliefthat the souls of the dead would be tried, tested, and refined in purgatory beforeadmission to the kingdom of heaven By the tenth century, however, a furthernotion was winning more widespread acceptance—that the passage of those soulscould be speeded or assisted by the prayers of the living Once the need for suchintercessory assistance was admitted, it became necessary to find a means by whichthe living could be prompted to such action The presence of the cross on thetomb slab provided the most obvious and convenient means of achieving this Ithelped make the slab a focal point for the prayerful attentions of the priest andpassers-by With the increase in the liturgical significance of the tomb, there wascorrespondingly a gradual but significant weakening of its importance as a witness

to status It would be wrong to place too strong an emphasis on this shift in thebalance of function The tomb slab was still an important mark of status; a person’sability to commission a stone necessarily marked him out as a person of standing.None the less, with the higher priority now accorded to the cross as a spur tointercession, artistically the claims of the world to come took precedence over those

of the present

Simple grave slabs, most of them with crosses, were being produced in greatnumber from the tenth and eleventh centuries Well over a hundred slabs ofroughly this date were discovered at Bakewell (Derby.), when the south transeptwas rebuilt in 1841.⁹ In the pre-Conquest period a group of substantial workshopshave been identified as operating in the east Midlands.¹⁰ The products of all ofthese schools are internally homogeneous, pointing to centralized production on

a near-industrial scale The most accomplished of the group was the one based

⁸ C Fox, ‘Anglo-Saxon Monumental Sculpture in the Cambridge District’, Proc of the

Cambridge Antiquarian Soc 17 (1920–1), 15–45, at 32.

⁹ F C Plumptre, ‘Some Account of the Parish Church of Bakewell in Derbyshire’, Archaeological

Jnl 4 (1847), at 47–58.

¹⁰ Fox, ‘Anglo-Saxon Monumental Sculpture in the Cambridge District’; P Everson and

D Stocker, Corpus of Anglo-Saxon Stone Sculpture, V: Lincolnshire (Oxford, 1999), 36–57.

in the Kesteven district of Lincolnshire About 47 of its products have beenidentified These are all thick, almost square in section, their decoration consisting

of double-ended crosses embedded in panels of interlace Fifteen of the stones have

a bull’s head motif, probably a mason’s signature Their shape and dimensionssuggest that they were intended to resemble the rectangular chest coffins produced

at York The characteristics of the mid-Kesteven package—crosses, standardizediconography, evocation of the coffin—all point to ecclesiastical supervision of theoutput

The second of the east Midlands schools appears to have been based in or nearCambridge Some 64 of its products have been identified in Lincolnshire, the Fens,east Midlands, and East Anglia Again, the consistency of the iconography points

to central supervision of production The slabs were generally severe in treatment,their decoration consisting of a cross set to the background of a simple interlacedesign The unique keys motif on the slab excavated on the site of Cambridgecastle points to strong ecclesiastical supervision of design, as in Kesteven VictoriaThompson has suggested the possible involvement of the bishops of Lindsey.¹¹ Thethird and last of the east Midlands workshops was the smallest—a workshop based

at or near Lincoln whose products, characterized by repetitive interlace decoration,were confined to north Lincolnshire

Towards the end of the eleventh century all three east Midlands workshopsappear to have ceased production Well before this time, however, a range of otherproducers had entered the market, notably the prolific workshops based at theBarnack quarries The Barnack carvers were to be the dominant producers of graveslabs for the Midlands and East Anglian markets for the next two to three centuries.Their products are easily identifiable by their use of the familiar double omegamotif on the vertical stem of the cross (Fig 8) In other parts of the Midlands,workshops have been identified at Bakewell in the Peak District and, on a smallerscale, at Colsterworth (Lincs.) Assigning precise dates to monuments of this period

is difficult, not to say almost impossible In all but a few cases the monumentslack inscriptions; and, when an inscription is included, as at Stratfield Mortimer(Fig 3), it is usually without a date of death for the deceased In most cases datingcan only be undertaken by reference to the techniques of stylistic analysis On thebasis of comparisons with architectural and other sculpture, Laurence Butler hasidentified a range of cross-head designs which, in his view, may be dated to thetwelfth century He has dubbed these designs ‘Early Geometric’ Most are of discoidform—for example, the Greek cross within a circle, found at Biddulph (Staffs.),the cross pat´e in a circle, at Halifax (Yorks.), and the cross head of four circles, atPentrich (Staffs.).¹² Over the century from c.1140 the design of cross heads becamemore elaborate Among the forms most commonly encountered in the Midlandsare ‘bracelet’ heads of four open rings ending in buds, and more ornate formsadorned with sprigs Dates can only be assigned to these early monuments in very

¹¹ Thompson, Dying and Death, 128.

¹² L A S Butler, ‘Minor Medieval Monumental Sculpture in the East Midlands’, Archaeological

Jnl 121 (1965), 115.